Physicians in the Academic Marketplace

The mobility of medical school faculty has never before been the topic of a book or comprehensive article. In this seminal study, Dolores L. Burke explores medical faculty recruitment and termination policies and procedures. Her findings are based on personal interviews with 300 faculty members and mail responses from 49 others. She provides detailed information on constraining factors in the medical academic marketplace, the impact of public accountability on medical school faculty, and the essential character of medical schools as research institutions and providers of important services to the larger community. Burke concludes that recruitment policies must be formulated more strategically, that administrative structures need to be revised, and that the clinical base of medical research needs to be supported and maintained.

Burke begins her study with an historical overview of medical education and the labor market for medical school faculty. She then considers the factors that shape the professional lives of medical faculty, including the choice of an academic career, the selection of a medical specialization, and the decision to change institutions. Useful appendixes discuss her research methodology in detail, and the numerous excerpts from interviews exemplify current concerns and opinions of medical school faculty. University administrators, policymakers, and those interested in medical education will find this volume an insightful contribution to a previously neglected area.

DOLORES L. BURKE is Special Assistant to the President of Duke University. She has published numerous articles on the academic job market and is the author of A New Academic Marketplace (Greenwood, 1988).